2nd December 2019
Afternoon
I knew Michael was right when he told me that the Drifter was after us – only us – but still, I couldn’t help but worry for my dad. So, we drove back home. When we arrived, the house was empty. It probably meant nothing, and yet I couldn’t stop myself from feeling a dread wash over me. We left and spent the next hour driving around the village, trying to find him. I wanted to stay out all afternoon. Hastings saw us from outside the pub on two occasions as we passed, and I knew he would be suspicious, so we headed back to Michael’s and waited. I tried ringing Dad’s landline every twenty minutes or so and felt relieved when I managed to get hold of him just after 4 p.m.. The relief I felt was like nothing I had felt before. My dad was OK. He was home. When I asked where he had been, he said he’d been in the pub. It surprised me. He mentioned Holly, asked if I knew. I said I did and offered no more information. I asked about the memory test, he told me it went well. I could sense a lightness in his voice, which made me believe him. And if it went well, then things weren’t as bad as we thought.
As the evening drew on, Michael and I sat on opposite sides of the sofa in his living room. In spite of everything, I knew I couldn’t outrun this thing anymore. Twenty-one years of careering away from that night, twenty-one years of outsmarting everyone had come back on us. I refused to accept that we just had to wait for him to arrive and pick us off. There was another alternative. One I’d refused to consider.
‘Michael, what if we came clean?’
‘What!?’
‘What if we went to the police, told them everything, told them about that night, what happened, what we did.’
‘Neve. We’ll go to jail!’
‘Yes, we probably would. We deserve to, don’t we?’
He sighed. ‘Yes, we do. How will it help if we came clean now?’
‘We can lead them to Chloe. We can take ownership of what happened. And then, maybe the Drifter will stop? Or maybe, if we lead them to Chloe, we will find him.’
‘I don’t think he will stop, and I don’t think the police will find him either. He’s taken… he’s hurt four of us.’
‘I guess.’
‘We can’t go to the police – we’ve missed our window, we’ve missed it by twenty-one years. We have to stick to the plan. Keep them focused on the crimes now, find the Drifter now and then they will charge him for Chloe too, and we can get on with our lives.’
‘I’m not sure how we can just get on…’
‘We managed to before, didn’t we? We have to do it again.’
‘So, what do we do?’
‘We wait.’
‘What if he doesn’t come here? What if he doesn’t know about this place?’
‘Everyone in the village knows about this place. He’ll come. I can feel it. And then we make him take us to our friends.’
He nodded solemnly at me. It was important to be hopeful, I guess. So, we had to stick it out, we had to wait for the Drifter to come for us, like he had the others. We had to be ready, ambush the man who was ambushing us.
Hour after hour ticked by slowly as we holed up and prepared for the Drifter to come, and just after 8 o’clock my mobile rang, the number display showing me it was Thompson.
‘Shit, what should I say?’
‘Ignore it.’
‘If I ignore it, he’ll come looking for me.’
‘Then say something about us being scared, gone into hiding. Don’t know who to trust.’
I nodded and answered the phone.
‘Neve, where are you? Are you OK?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m with Michael.’
‘Thank God. I was worried. I went to your dad’s and you weren’t there.’
‘Sorry, I should have said something. I got spooked. Is there any sign of Holly?’
‘No, not yet. They’ve deployed more officers from Nottingham to help with the search. Hastings is pissed off.’
‘Can you tell me anything?’
‘There was no sign of a forced entry into Holly’s, which means she let him in. It’s someone she feels she can trust.’
I looked over to Michael, who looked back, nervously. And I wondered why. ‘Hastings won’t talk to me, but I suspect the same could be said for Dr McBride, possibly the others too. And although it’s not confirmed, the police strongly believe the top does belong to the doctor.’
‘And the village?’
‘Busy. More reporters from major stations. More people in the streets being interviewed, sharing their speculations. Where are you both?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’ I looked to Michael for reassurance, he bit his lower lip, his right eye showed the signs of a stress twitch. ‘Because the Drifter is able to take people without leaving any traces of his presence. And you said yourself, the Drifter could be anyone. I don’t know who to trust.’
‘You trust Michael?’
Michael got up, walked away, lit a cigarette. ‘I do, yes. He and I are in the same situation, aren’t we?’ I didn’t know why I added a question mark.
‘Yes, I guess you are. You’re right to not trust me.’
‘Am I?’
‘I’d not trust me if I were you. Sit tight. I’ll find him.’ Thompson hung up and I kept the phone to my ear for a while longer than I should.
‘What did he say?’
‘Whoever took Holly, she let them in, it’s someone she knows. Someone close.’
‘That could be anyone,’ he said too quickly. ‘Holly was popular with her yoga friends, Mum friends, pub friends. It hardly gives us a list of people we could look at.’
‘Thompson said Baz was likely to have done the same.’
‘What? So, it’s someone known to both?’
‘Likely known to all of us.’
‘Who the bloody hell can it be?’ He was sweating.
‘It’s gotta be someone connected to Chloe also.’
‘Her mum?’ Michael asked.
‘I don’t think so. She’s mental, but I don’t think she can see past her own grief.’
‘Then who?’
We speculated over more names in the village, ruling them out one after the other. As before, it seemed everyone could be the Drifter, and no one at all. It even seemed it could be one of us. When I said that, I tried to sound like I was being flippant. But I watched his response. He was worried… but then, so was I.
As the day wore on, a headache began to develop behind my eyes that increased with each passing minute, the sleep deprivation starting to take its toll. I knew if I didn’t close my eyes soon, a migraine would begin to rage. I needed to doze, just for a moment, on the sofa. Michael insisted we went upstairs, as there was only one way in which he could come for us. So, we sat in his bedroom and waited. In any other context, being in his room would have been weird, especially given my horrendous pass at him. But he didn’t seem to care. Michael made me a cup of tea, and we sat on the edge of the bed and smoked cigarettes. As the night wore on, I felt my limbs begin to feel heavy. It was only just 10 p.m. I put it down to exhaustion, at first.
‘It’s OK, Neve, lie down, close your eyes. I’ll stay up.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, already beginning to shuffle up the bed so my head would hit the pillow. I didn’t want to sleep, but I couldn’t help it. It was almost like I didn’t have a choice. My body was shutting down regardless.
‘Neve, you look shattered.’
‘It’s come over me so quickly. Don’t let me sleep more than a couple of hours.’
‘I won’t.’
Michael got off the bed and sat himself in a chair in the corner of the room. From where I lay, I watched him looking out of the window, squinting to see shapes in the low light outside. He appeared tense, scared. I was too, and yet, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My blinks were long and heavy, my vision struggled to focus on the solid mass of my friend only ten feet away. He looked towards me and offered a smile designed to reassure me, calm me, but it didn’t.
‘Michael?’ I tried to say, but my words slurred.
‘Shhhhh, see you in a few hours,’ he said quietly. ‘Get some sleep.’